"It is entirely within his prerogative to decide who fills those positions.

"However, it is regrettable that he has chosen to divide his party.

"My first duty is to my constituents who I will continue to stand up for as I have done since my time in the Welsh assembly."

Reacting to his sacking as shadow finance minister, Mr Ramsay said: "I am very surprised by this decision especially bearing in mind that I am away on Assembly business in Brussels. However I am very happy to work in whatever capacity the Conservative group asks of me".

Mr Davies said he was confident the new shadow cabinet had "everything it takes to continue breaking barriers and providing innovative ideas".

"I want to thank Nick Ramsay, Antoinette Sandbach, Janet Finch-Saunders, and Mohammad Asghar for their excellent service and I look forward to continued campaigning with them as a Welsh Conservative group," he said.

"From scrapping stamp duty to boosting small business. From putting excellence back in education to putting money back in the health service.

"Welsh Conservatives are the only real alternative to a tired and lazy Labour government that's run out of ideas."

David Davies, Conservative MP for Monmouth, told BBC Radio Wales he was a believer in party unity and was surprised the four AMs had been fired from their shadow posts for supporting a national policy.

"What I certainly wouldn't do is sign up to an amendment attacking my own party policy as I do believe in unity.

"I'm very surprised because Nick [Ramsay] and the others were backing government policy, backing the policy of David Jones which is if income tax is devolved after a referendum it needs to be done with certain restrictions in place."

The MP said he was also concerned to hear that Mr Ramsay heard of his dismissal via social media.

"I've never heard of people being fired by Twitter and I hope that does not become the norm," he said.

On Thursday, Mr Asghar said he was "disappointed, and a bit surprised" adding: "This is politics."

He said: "Definitely there are a few people that don't agree with each other but I'm sure we can thrash things out."